The Case For War

THE CASE FOR WAR

Ajit Chaudhuri – October 2015

‘Join the Army - Travel to far-off, exotic places - Meet unusual, exciting people - And kill them’[1]

My Days in J&K: I am gallivanting around in J&K again! This time, i.e. the past year, has been different from earlier occasions in that I have travelled around freely, and at no time have I felt unsafe, insecure, or threatened. I am often reminded of earlier sojourns, when the same could not always have been said.

My first visit into J&K was back in 1995, by bus from Delhi to Leh via Manali when I entered the state after the descent down the Baralacha La pass. ‘Wow!’ I remember thinking while looking at the yellow mountainous landscape (that part of J&K is a high altitude desert). I returned on foot, journeying from Leh to Spiti on to Manali and Delhi and leaving the state via the almost 6,000 metres high Parang La pass.

I next had a series of visits between 1997 and 1999, this time while coordinating a research study in Changthang and Batalik (both in Ladakh). The latter required me to visit border areas in the days of shelling, when journeys between Dras and Kargil were done at night with lights off (there is a two km stretch of road that is in direct sight of our friendly neighbour’s artillery), a deeply unpleasant experience on those mountainous roads to the extent that I think I would prefer to have been shelled.

I saw the Kashmir valley only after the 2005 earthquake, when duty took me to Uri and Tangdhar for the next two years. My organization of the time, along with the Army, built a students’ hostel in Tangdhar (said to be the best in the state) – made possible by the 2003 ceasefire along the border that ensured no shelling. Travelling within the state, i.e. Srinagar to Tangdhar/Uri (via towns that anyone following the news would be familiar with, Baramulla, Kupwara, Sopore, et al) was not so much fun – do it in a military vehicle and face attacks by the militancy, and do it in a civilian vehicle and face long searches and make explanations every 25 km, usually with three AK-47s pointed at different body parts until one’s identity was established.

As I said, notwithstanding the drama on our news channels, it is much better today!

The benefits of long term peace and stability should be obvious to all; flowers bloom, infrastructure builds up, the wheels of the economy churn, growth, development and prosperity are ushered in, democracy flourishes, blah, blah, blah, and we can have children in the knowledge that they will not have to face the brutality of war.

The Case for War: Why then is war such an attractive option? Why is it touted so often, by the powers-that-be and the general public, even as a solution to minor problems and as a course of action to address irritants? Are people idiots, that they don’t know what war costs? Or is there something about war that is sensible, rational, and sane? This note examines the case for war, in general and in the case of the current environment in India and its immediate neighbourhood.

The economic perspective: War is a stimulant to an economy, especially in its initial moments, creating demand for all things military and revving up the defence production sector. It can become a drag as it goes on, as the warring country prints more notes to finance it (thus reducing the currency’s worth), and as the ‘guns vs. butter’ argument over the use of scarce resources slants away from food. Long wars are the luxury of the large economies, and that is why superpower-hood (defined as the ability to conduct two remote wars simultaneously) is a one country club.

The military perspective: Armies tend to like war! This is for obvious reasons; generals decide things in armies, and a) they tend not to die in war, and b) war reminds a country why it has an army in the first place (in peace, an army is a non-productive expense and therefore a burden on the exchequer). War builds an army’s profile, and helps justify its budget demands. But also, a good army needs to have a war every generation for practical reasons – generals need to have fought wars as captains and majors, when they are in the frontline, to be competent generals, and they therefore need opportunities for the current crop of captains and majors to gain the necessary experience to be the generals of tomorrow. It is in fact a little disconcerting to note that the Indian armed forces are soon going to be led by people who have no first-hand knowledge of the ‘fog of war’.

The societal perspective: Policy makers often have to deal with the problem of large numbers of useless young men – they are disruptive, they challenge status quo and they upend established power relations in society. They scare the powerful and elite, to whom policy makers are accountable. The traditional method of dealing with them was to send them off to war – this killed them in numbers, and those that came back did so respectful of structure and authority, ready to go on to a life as part of the system, lawyers, accountants, etc. This had the added advantage, from the perspective of the elite, of leaving large numbers of young women available to them. It is no surprise that most of the major wars across history took place when the warring entities were experiencing spikes in the population of young people. Long term peace leaves policy options like skilling programmes, subsidized universities, and creating jobs in sufficient numbers, to address the menace – less effective because (apart from neither culling them nor freeing up the women) these are no guarantee against them exerting their disruptive influence on society at large.

The political perspective: Politicians tend to like being seen as war-time leaders for the obvious benefits that winning a war brings to their political careers – and the option of war is particularly attractive to those whose CVs have little else to offer; who have no experience of or interest in nation building, and whose inclinations are more towards destroying institutions and systems rather than creating to them. You are thinking it – politicians like the crude, bigoted provincials in our central cabinet[2].

Most of our current masters share two more dangerous traits. One – they are semi-educated. While shrewd enough, they have limited knowledge, a zero world view, and an inability to distinguish between mythology and reality, the products of a broken education system and a reason for their inability to fill public positions that have intellectual requirements. And two, while Pakistan serves them as a convenient object of hatred, it is also their role model for India. They lack the intellectual capacity to take into account the arguments against military adventurism – that you cannot fight geography (and therefore that Pakistan will always be your neighbour, whether you like it or not), that while Pakistan may be a dump it does have a fighting army, and that nobody wins a nuclear war. That even if they ‘win’ (i.e. assuming no nukes and interventions by the US or China, all big ‘if’s), they will then have to administer the most un-administrable parts of the world (the thought of these bozos running Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and FATA, which even the British left alone, anyone?).

To Conclude: War as a continuation of politics by other means (to quote the military strategist Carl von Clausewitz) is one thing. And war because of some fools’ ideological bindings, proclivity for groupthink, and need to compensate for the inability to do anything constructive, quite another. We are in for interesting times.

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[1] Slogan on a popular anti-war T-shirt at about the time of the Falklands War.

[2] Anyone taking umbrage could see ‘India’s Great Educational Divide’, Aatish Taseer, NYT of 9^th October 2015.

The Half Century

THE HALF-CENTURY

A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri

‘If this were a cricket match, the crowd would be roaring’

 

I never really thought about life after turning 50 until I turned 50 – 50^th birthday parties, to me (on the occasions that I attended them), were full of decrepit old people trying desperately to make a final attempt at having fun before moving on, and anyway I always thought I’d be dead by then. Actually, I never thought about life beyond 37 years and three-and-a-half months, because that was the next century.

My generation has lived in good times! We have heard Dylan sing, seen Maradona play, and watched India first win the World Cup! We remember Chandrashekhar bowling with Engineer behind the wickets, Wadekar at slip, Venkat at gully, Solkar at silly point and Abid Ali at forward short leg – easily the scariest thing in cricket for a batsman, especially at Eden Gardens when 90,000 people screamed ‘booowwwwlllled’ as Chandra ran in. We grew up in a highly subsidized higher education system (college fees – Rs. 15 per month, monthly DTC bus pass – Rs. 12.50), and then earned liberalized salaries. We saw the country open up to the world, and we travelled around it as a result; tales of visits to London or Paris that inspired shock and awe now attract yawns, and you have to go to Antartica or the moon (or take an all-girls trip around Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan and Uzbekistan, as my wife did) to get people envious any more. We had it easy; our grandparents were an awesome generation that fought wars, brought in independence, and built institutions solid enough to withstand the subsequent assault upon them. Our parents worked through cynical times; license raj, the Naxal movement, and the decline in the public sphere. Our children will likely grow up into a me-first globalized and Internet-connected world with many opportunities but few jobs. Yes, we have been lucky!

This paper looks at the changes in life brought upon when one turns 50. Is this the beginning of the end, when we contemplate retirement in a no-pension world? Do we pick up a liking for the opera, and for playing golf? Is this when we move up a level in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, hit the ‘self-actualization’ phase, and start doing things for the community and society? I have had two years to ponder these matters, both in my own life and in those of my peers, and these ponderings form the basis of this note. I have categorized my thoughts into the important things – family, women, work, football, food and booze. Here goes!

With Family: The children grow up! In earlier times, my wife and I used to wait for them to sleep and then sit down in peace, get a whisky, and chat about the day. Now they wait for us to sleep and then sit down in peace, get on to the Internet, and do whatever it is that kids do on the Internet these days (I have a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy with mine). We don’t have to drive them around anymore, but also have no idea of where they are. And I increasingly find that I have to lecture or admonish them for activities (drunkenness, disorderly or sluttish conduct, scatological utterances, inter alia) that I am in a position of little moral authority to do by virtue of my own past behaviour on these fronts, and they are well aware of this.

With Women: The pretty young things of yore have, by now, turned 40 – and you know what they say about turning 40, it’s when men rethink the value of integrity, and women of virtue. This is the area of rich pickings for the lecherous – anyone younger and you think you’re with your daughter, and as for women in your own age group, what can I say except ‘yuk’? Be warned, though, because attributes that kept you ahead earlier like the ability to fake sensitivity, and having hair on one’s head, or a GSOH (the importance of this as a turn-on for women is one of life’s abiding mysteries – can you imagine a man giving a hang for whether a woman is able to make him laugh) decrease in importance relative to good ol’ money and power.

At Work: The harsh truth is that, if you haven’t made the C-suite or its equivalent by now, you are never going to. At issue is how you adapt to it. Earlier generations accepted this, and were willing to spend the remainder of their professional lives in the rabbit warrens of middle management as their bosses got younger in the interests of stability and security. My peers, on the other hand, have been willing to make big changes at 50 – taking on new professional assignments, seeking opportunities abroad, changing from job to business and vice versa, inter alia. While these don’t always work out, the ability to start anew is an important attribute at 50.

At Football: This is where the decline is most discernible. In the 40s, when one begins to slow down, one is protected somewhat by an ability to read the game better and a fearsome reputation within one’s playing fraternity. At 50, one turns into an anachronism; the others are now 20-30 years younger and look up to you less for your playing ability and more for your still being able to ‘do it’. Is it time to shift over to golf? Not yet; you still have something important in common with the others – that deep and abiding love for the game – and there is much knowledge to be gained during post-game gossip from an age-group whose idea of fun is to go off in a group to Bangkok and get themselves a ‘hot and cold’ (figure it out yourselves) while there.

At the Table: A love for good food, as with football, does not change with age – it is just that one’s ability to do it justice tends to diminish. I, for one, continue to search for super food and great service wherever I am, and to delight when I find it in people’s homes and at simple eateries at ordinary prices. I still check as to what’s on the menu when I am invited out, eat vegetables only when I have no options, and avoid all healthy stuff. And as for booze, while the pleasures of country liquor (such as santra, gulabo and kesar kasturi) have long given way to a cold beer or a smoky single malt, I continue to derive considerable joy from the occasional tipple, and my ability to hold it continues to be questionable. I dread the day that I am forced to exercise control, count calories, and cut out these small joys from my life.

And this, ladies and gentleman, is a short description of life at the beginning of the wrong side of 50. For those of you not yet there, rest assured that it is not necessarily a milestone requiring compliance with the old Doors number ‘The End’ that also formed the music score of Apocalypse Now, that went ‘this is the end, my friend’. And for those of us who are, let’s continue to live life as it is meant to be lived; working hard and playing hard, with experiences to be savoured, places to be travelled, knowledge to be gained, battles to be fought, and hearts to be won.

 

A Corporate Jargon Buster

A CORPORATE JARGON-BUSTER

A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – July 2015

 

I did two things last year – I joined the corporate sector, and I shifted to Mumbai. Both were pretty big deals! I had never done time in the corporate sector and didn’t even know anyone from there. And as for Mumbai, like most Delhi-wallahs I used to find the city dirty, smelly and intimidating and avoided it to the extent possible.

It’s been OK (so far), and I have been surprised! The corporate sector has not turned out to be overflowing with alpha scumbags pushing and shoving their way to the C-suite, and it has been somewhat comforting to realize that meetings here are as long and unproductive as they were in NGOs and that my skills in being fast asleep or scoring goals in the football world cup and cavorting with supermodels while looking attentive and engaged in the discussion are as much required now as they were earlier. And as for the city, I am slowly discovering that there is more to it than Shiv Sainiks and train commuters; that amidst the high-rises are some beautiful old buildings, that its pavements are walkable and its traffic is chaotic but unaggressive, and that it has its eccentricities (for example, its famous insularity applies as much within as it does outside – for the Colaba-walla, the act of crossing Peddar Road is undertaken with the same reluctance that you and I would go to Bihar, and others use the word ‘sobo’, not particularly politely, to describe the South Mumbaikar).

Anyway – to the purpose of this note! I have noticed that I am not the first migrant from academia, development and consulting to move to the corporate sector, and I will not be the last – there are opportunities here and the salaries are good. Those of you looking to move here will need to adjust to the peculiarities of the sector; the hierarchical mode of functioning, the humungous quantum of email to be dealt with, the working lunch, et al. And one of these is the language of corporate-speak.

This note looks to identify terms and phrases that are ubiquitous here but not heard (by me) elsewhere, and thereby prepare wannabe or recent migrants for linguistic survival. It describes a selected ten from a long list detailed in the table below.

 

The Long List

30,000 feet	Asset light model	Back of the envelope	Bandwidth	Blue sky
Capex	Closing the loop	Curate	Custodian	CXO, C-suite
Dashboard	Deck	Deep dive	Granular	Hardstop
Long list	Messaging Corridor	Non value added activity	Optics	Pitchbook
Playbook	Pushback	Quick wins	SOP	Speaking above one’s pay grade
SPOC	Stretch target	Traction	Vertical	White space

 

 

 

A Short Description of a Select Few

30,000 feet: A higher level view or perspective of a situation, seeing its larger picture and its strategic linkages rather than its details.

Bandwidth: You can’t say ‘piss off, I’m busy’ to someone who is giving you work that you can’t or don’t want to do, you say ‘I have limited bandwidth at the moment’.

Deep dive: The move from 30,000 feet to the details is a deep dive.

Granular: Your lazy minions need to get back to work and put in some rigour and detail into their presentation – you say ‘would you like to bring in some granularity?’

Hard stop: A meeting is meandering on and Real Madrid is going to play FC Barcelona in 30 minutes – you get collective agreement on a hard stop in 15.

Non value added activity: Bumming around the coffee machine, discussing last night’s match, sharing info on the shopping in the vicinity of the office and gossiping about a colleague’s wandering eye, all the useless stuff that makes life in the rabbit warren of junior management bearable, actually constitutes non value added activity.

Pushback: When the company has acquired land from tribal communities for mining or whatever against their will, and there has been an armed insurgency against this in which your executives have been kidnapped and their testicles chopped off, you don’t say ‘Boss, we are in deep shit’ to your reporting officer. You say ‘Sir, there is some pushback from the locals’.

Speaking above one’s pay-grade: This refers to a gaffe that those of us not used to hierarchical structures tend to commit in our early and stupid days in the corporate sector, when we are falsely confident of our own expertise and the openness of higher echelons within the organization to our opinions. We soon figure out that it is hara-kiri to ‘speak above one’s pay grade’.

SPOC: Not from Star Trek but an acronym for Single Point of Contact – when you are taking forward an activity that cuts across departments or divisions, you need a SPOC from each else you will be knee-deep in non-value added activity handling the coordination, for which you are unlikely to have sufficient bandwidth.

White space: I have yet to find an acceptable way to say ‘this is pure and unadulterated bullshit’ in office, or that a ‘monumental f**k up’ has happened, and this constitutes a white space in corporate jargon. Any suggestions?